In my most recent Haunting Danielle book, The Ghost and Christmas Magic, I write a lot about family Christmas traditions. Many Christmas traditions are food traditions, like what foods are served on Christmas Eve and Christmas night, or special treats. Some of the food traditions from my family I’ve introduced to the Haunting Danielle world.
In our family, my Grandma Madeline made things like Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chocolate Drop Cookies, Chex Mix, and cheese balls every Christmas. Dad made his fudge—a recipe he developed himself. When my kids were little, our go-to Christmas cookie was the Magic Bar cookie, which was easy to make for a busy young mom, and I thought tasted even better than chocolate chip. And then there was Grandma Hilda’s infamous Feffernut Cookie.
Both of my grandmothers were known for being excellent cooks. In my mother’s family, the Feffernut cookie was a Christmas family tradition. Mom and my sister loved them, dad called them dog biscuits.
As a child, I didn’t like them because they weren’t chocolate. I probably tried them when I was little—although I don’t remember—I just remembered they weren’t chocolate, and I was a picky eater so for me, when I opened a cookie tin and saw Feffernut cookies, I saw disappointment.
When Grandma Hilda—and whoever helped her, probably my aunt Margaret—make the cookies, they would make a lot and store them in pillowcases. Grandma didn’t seem to take offence at Dad’s critique.
I was pretty young when Grandma had to hang up her apron. By this time she had glaucoma and was considered legally blind yet had some vision out of one eye. My Aunt Margaret, mom’s older sister, took over the task of making the Feffernut cookies. Cooking was never Mom’s thing, but she loved the Feffernut cookie, so she appreciated the tin of cookies Margaret sent each year.
Despite knowing my family was not a Feffernut fan, Aunt Margaret would send my family a tin of homemade cookies each Christmas, with some of them being the “dog biscuits.” As it turned out, my kids and husband shared Dad’s view of the cookie. We’d give Mom the cookies, even though she had a tin of her own.
Now fast forward many years, and Aunt Margaret, like her mother before her, had to hang up her apron. My sister, Lynn, who always made the absolute best chocolate chip cookies, began making Feffernut cookies every Christmas, something Mom appreciated.
Then something crazy happened…I tried one of my sister’s Feffernut cookies. And I liked it…I really liked it. For one thing, it was not dry like Aunt Margaret’s (sorry Auntie) and I can’t say how it compares to Grandma Hilda’s because that was so long ago. Even my husband likes my sister’s Feffernut cookies.
Last year Lynn didn’t send us any. I suspect because Mom had passed months before that Christmas, and that’s who Lynn usually made them for. This year, when Lynn asked what I wanted for Christmas, I said Feffernut cookies.
Yesterday my sister’s Christmas package arrived, it included the requested cookies—and they are super yummy.
But are they really called Feffernut? When I was growing up, I heard them called Feffernut—and Peppernut. Yet they are actually Pfeffernüsse cookies, a small round German spice cookie popular during the holidays. From what I understand, this is a cookie Grandma Hilda made with her mother, and I assume her sisters.
While Grandma Hilda’s father was born in Norway, her mother, Louisa Sontag, was born in Wisconsin in 1872. Louisa’s father, Jacob Sontag, was born in Germany in 1846 and immigrated to the USA around the age of six. Louisa’s mother, Margaretha Frisch, was born on the ship when her parents were immigrating from Switzerland, in 1850.
Margaretha Frish had ten children, and died when Lousia was sixteen, at the age of thirty-eight. Jacob remarried three times after his first wife’s death. While I am not sure about the statuses of the subsequent marriages—did they divorce or die—I know his mother, Barbara Heinrich, outlived Jacob.
Barbara Heinrich, Jacob’s mother, Louisa’s grandmother, and Hilda’s great grandmother, died when my grandma Hilda was around eleven years old. I remember hearing stories about how when Grandma Hilda was a little girl, she knew how to speak German. I suspect she learned from her Great-Grandma Barbara, and I imagine the Pfeffernüsse cookie was a tradition passed down from Barbara.
While Grandma never spoke German when I knew her—and I understood she no longer remembered how to speak it—she still knew how to make the Pfeffernüsse cookie, and that tradition has been passed down to Barbara’s Great-Great-Great Granddaughter, my sister Lynn.
Grandma Hilda’s Peppernut Cookie Recipe
- 2 cups shortening
- 1 quart light molasses
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups light brown sugar
- 4 eggs (beaten)
- 2 teaspoons baking soda (dissolved in a little warm water)
- 2 cups chopped walnuts ( not chopped too fine)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons pepper nut seeds (equal amounts of cardamon, anise and
- coriander seeds ground together)
- Walnut halves for topping cookies (Optional)
- Flour
- In large pot melt shortening, add molasses, salt and brown sugar. Bring to near boil, remove from heat and allow to cool. While warm (not hot) add eggs, stir. Add remaining ingredients, blend well. Add enough flour to make a stiff batter that can be stirred with a large spoon. Chill. Roll and slice. Place cookie rounds on cookie sheet, top with walnut and bake for 15 minutes at 300º.